G4S Involvement in Israeli Prison System and Checkpoints

G4S provides security services and equipment for Israeli prisons that routinely violate the human rights of children and Palestinian adults. This has led international leaders including Archbishop Desmond Tutu to speak out against G4S complicity in violations of international law.

Who Profits, a research project of the Coalition of Women for Peace, has done extensive research on G4S and it’s role in supporting Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. Through its Israeli subsidiary, G4S provides security systems for Israeli prisons and detention centers in Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories.

G4S also provides security services for Israeli military checkpoints, businesses operating in illegal settlements, and the Israeli police headquarters in the occupied West Bank.

In April 2015, Corporate Watch, a UK based research group, issued a report entitled Imprisoned Voices: Corporate Complicity in the Israeli Prison System.According to this report, “800,000 Palestinians have been detained by the Israeli authorities since the beginning of the occupation, meaning that 40 percent of Palestinian men have been arrested at least once.” Corporate Watch reports:

Currently, 6,500 Palestinians are prisoners in the Israeli Prison System;

454 Palestinians are held without charges under the administrative detention laws;

200 children under the age of 18 are in Israeli prisons and treated as adults;

14 Palestinian legislators and one government minster are currently serving prison terms

On March 9, 2016, G4S announced plans to exit a number of businesses in the next 12-24 months, including its G4S Israel business. According to the Middle East Monitor, “Although G4S did not cite the hard work of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign as the chief reason for it divesting in Israel, it is reasonable to suggest that BDS has exposed the company’s involvement in security activities which aid and abet Israel’s military occupation at the expense of the human and civil rights of the Palestinians. In terms of public relations, that is a disaster for such a large company. For that reason alone, its divestment is indeed a big deal.”